The shaky ceasefire in Syria held just well enough so that the United Nations could begin delivering desperately needed aid to areas hard-hit by the ongoing civil war.  The agency hopes to get food, water and medicine into six cities this week. Their success is by no means assured, as there have been several reports of violations of the fragile peace already.

Apple scored a key legal victory when a New York judge said the tech company did not need to unlock an iPhone in compliance with a law enforcement request. The decision comes as a California court prepares to hear similar arguments—that Apple can’t be forced to comply under a 200-year-old law called the All Writs Act--in a case involving the phone of Syed Farook, one of the two shooters in the San Bernardino attacks.  Grantee the Electronic Frontier Foundation published a quick analysis of the ruling Monday evening, arguing it augurs well as prosecutors have used the All Writs Act as the basis to try to win tech companies’ cooperation in a number of cases across the country.

On the eve of Super Tuesday, Donald Trump maintains a substantial lead in most polls, expanding his share of the GOP vote to nearly 50 percent, despite a barrage of attacks from rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and a reported tsunami of conservative money flowing in via superPACS as elements of the GOP’s battered establishment make a last-ditch effort to derail the party’s frontrunner. Grantee MoveOn.org has launched a petition, urging signatories to speak out against Trump “for his hatred, misogyny, Islamophobia, and racism and to give platform for the voices of the silent majority of Americans who do not and will not stand for it.” Press accounts continued to pore over Trump’s statements, past and present, about white supremacist David Duke. Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who gained national attention for her hard-line stance on immigration reform, endorsed Trump.

The State Dept. released the last batch of emails from Hillary Clinton’s home-based server during her tenure as secretary of State. Armed with strong advantages in a number of the 11 states at stake, her campaign has begun positioning for a fall showdown with Trump.

A refugee from Somalia hopes to become the first Muslim woman elected to public office in Minnesota, as she makes a bid for a state legislative seat. According to a researcher at Georgetown’s Bridge Initiative, which studies Islamophobia, the number of Muslim-Americans holding office nosedived after 9/11, going from some 700 in 2000 to 70 in 2002. The numbers have not improved appreciably since then.

A federal judge in Ohio tossed out a case accusing US Border Patrol agents of racially profiling and rounding up Hispanics. The judge acknowledged “a handful of distasteful incidents,” but said statistics did not support the claim.

 Among other grantee activities:

--OSPC grantee Human Rights First released a new report, based on research in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, that showed refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war “are increasingly at risk across the region as they face a lack of access to protection, border closures, and severe backlogs in the resettlement process.”

--America’s Voice organized a meeting to expose candidates in Ohio’s closely contested Senate race to immigrants eligible for relief under President Obama’s DAPA and DACA programs. 

--The Center for American Progress published an article detailing how emerging demographic dynamics could shape the outcome of the 2016 election.

--The National Immigration Law Center promoted a report from the American Immigration Council about state-level benefits for DACA recipients.